DESCRIPTION

Many older people in Russia remember seeing strange vinyl type flexi-discs when they were young. The discs had partial images of skeletons on them and were called ‘Bones’ or ‘Ribs’.

In the cold war era, both the Soviet recording industry and its permissable musical repertoire were ruthlessly controlled by the State. But a vibrant, secret and risky trade grew up in bootleg records containing forbidden music including Western Jazz and Rock and Roll. In the absence of access to the usual means of making records, an ingenious alternative source of medium had been found – used X-Ray plates obtained from hospitals. STEPHEN COATES presents a selection of these incredible beautiful and spooky X-Ray records collected in Russia over the last few years and tells the strange story of those who made them

STEPHEN COATES is a composer and music producer. He came across the subject of the X-Ray recordings when travelling to Russia to perform as The Real Tuesday Weld over the last six years. A graduate of the Royal College